Shalala Named President of University of Miami
Coral Gables, Fla.
Dr. Donna E. Shalala, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration, will become the fifth president of the University of Miami next June, it was announced late last month.
Shalala, 59, who has overseen health and welfare policy for the government for the past eight years, also served in the Carter administration as assistant secretary of housing and urban development. In addition, she has served as president of Hunter College in New York and chancellor of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
As chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1987-’93, she was the first woman to head a Big Ten University. During her tenure at the University of Wisconsin, she helped raise more than $400 million for the institution’s endowment and spearheaded a $225 million public-private partnership program to renovate and expand the university’s research facilities. While presiding over one of the largest and most prestigious state universities in the nation, she recruited world-class scientists and at the same time upgraded undergraduate education and restructured the university’s athletics program.
Shalala was rumored as a candidate at some of the nation’s most prestigious universities. She reportedly wanted to lead a large university and one with a medical school.
The University of Miami has 13,963 students on four campuses and operates a law school, a business school and a medical school affiliated with a major hospital.
Shalala will succeed Miami’s president Edward T. Foote II who is retiring after almost 20 years, but will remain at the university in the position as chancellor until 2003.
“Donna Shalala is a compelling leader who not only has a reputation of being able to get things done, but has the capacity of working with people of diverse points of view,” says Board of Trustees Chairman Carlos M. de la Cruz Sr. “She is a seasoned chief executive with outstanding credentials in both academia and government. I am certain that Dr. Shalala will lead the University of Miami forward and fully expect that she will quickly make a tremendous imprint not only on our institution but the entire South Florida community.”
Shalala says she looks forward to returning to academia. “I am thrilled to lead the University of Miami and become part of the South Florida community,” she says. “I look forward to working with Miami’s gifted faculty, alumni and students. This is an important and challenging time for higher education.”
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